


whatever remains

by Kells



Series: gifts, requests, and other little bits [7]
Category: Captain America - All Media Types, Star Trek, The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe, Breaking Up & Making Up, Consequences, F/M, Female Steve Rogers, IN SPACE!, Mildly Dubious Consent, Mind Meld, half-Romulan Bucky how exciting
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-14
Updated: 2016-03-14
Packaged: 2018-05-06 15:05:57
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 8
Words: 15,583
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5421551
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kells/pseuds/Kells
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Captain Rogers does what she feels she must to save her best friend and first officer. James Barnes responds by turning in his resignation. Telepaths, Tony sighs, can be so dramatic sometimes.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. clash by night

**Author's Note:**

> there's nothing explicit in this, and the dubiousness of consent is to do with both of them trying to protect each other rather than any actual lack of enthusiasm, so I'm warning for alarming themes but leaving the rating as mostly they will argue and make up and argue again in their usual way, except in a Star Trek setting.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> things come to a head, again.

_(three weeks until Tar'Hana rendezvous)_

“God damn this jungle,” Stephanie Rogers panted, plowing on through the dense undergrowth. She knew her first officer was unlikely to answer- even before she’d ruined things between them it had never been in the commander’s nature to waste words in the midst of a crisis- but she was as grateful as she’d ever been for the reassuring tread of his boots, close on her heel. "It’s like Barton says, nowhere we actually want to be ever has blue foliage.”

Her communicator blared before James made her feel the distance that had grown between them by failing to point out, as he certainly would have in the old days, that such an observation was deeply illogical even for their navigator. Steph snatched up the device, almost tripping over her own feet in her eagerness.

“Tony! Thank God. Where the hell have you been hiding my ship, Stark?”

“We’re right here where your boy left us,” her Chief Engineer protested, worry and indignation coming through in equal measures even as his voice crackled and shuddered over the tenuous link he’d somehow managed to secure. “You’re the one who’s been off the grid without a trace for-”

Stark’s voice faded and warped before failing entirely.

“Damn,” Steph muttered, scanning the area in the vain hope of finding some kind of clearing to help reduce the interference.

“It’s the atmosphere,” James told her, speaking for the first time since he’d pulled Stephanie bodily from the cell where her captors had assured her she would breathe her last. “T’asha will know how to compensate.”

He was breathing heavily too, Steph realized- she hadn’t thought anything of it at first because of the way her own chest was heaving, but their exertions so far should have posed much less of a challenge to her companion’s half-Romulan constitution. She turned to check on him, suddenly uneasy, and took two startled steps towards him when she found James swaying where he stood. He had one hand pressed tight to his chest as though he was in pain.

“What is it? Are you hurt?”

She had become way too familiar with what her first officer looked like when he was trying to avoid her eyes. Steph sighed. "Look, I’m just asking if you-”

The reprimand died on her lips when James dropped his hand, letting Stephanie see the dark blood soaking through his field jacket. She breathed in sharply as the pieces fell into place- he had let her assume that the man who’d rushed her with that dagger as they escaped had simply missed his mark, but her first officer was _just_ the sort of idiot who would take a blow like that to protect her and then run four miles without saying a word about it. Before she could bite his head off for it, James staggered to his knees with a choked-off gasp which would have been a scream of pain from anybody else. Steph rushed to steady him, fighting to keep her sudden, breathless terror off her face.

“How bad is it?”

It was pretty bad- his skin was clammy to the touch, and it still sounded like he had to work for every breath- but James met her eyes with the same steady gaze that had met her for the first time the day he’d welcomed her aboard the ship that would become Steph’s pride and joy.

“You should go on without me. I can make sure they don’t get too close.”

Stephanie felt her fingers clench hard enough that they would have dug bruises into her human crewmates’ shoulders.

“If you really think I’d ever, ever, leave one of my people behind without-”

She flinched violently when Tony’s voice broke in on them again.

“Rogers, hey! You guys reading me down there?”

“Loud and clear,” Steph assured him. “Listen, Tony, we need medical-”

The lights which showed that the connection was holding flickered out again. James closed the hand that wasn’t sticky with his own blood carefully over Stephanie’s as if to stop her from flinging her communicator into the forest out of frustration.

“He’ll try again,” he said, not quite reprovingly. “Give your people time to do their jobs, Captain.”

Steph wasn’t at all confident that they had much time to spare for that while the commander's lips were losing colour even as she watched his face. James seemed to be thinking along similar lines himself.

“Will you tell T’asha that I-”

“No,” Stephanie snapped, ignoring the way her heart lurched at the raw hurt that crossed his face, just for a moment. “Tell her yourself. Don’t you dare give up on me, understand? That’s an order, Commander.”

His fingers brushed the inside of her wrist, making her shiver at the briefest spark of more-than-touch.

“Not anymore.”

“Of course you are,” Steph argued- she hadn’t even considered accepting the letter T’asha had handed her with uncharacteristically obvious distress. She fought a fond, frightened chuckle when her first officer narrowed his eyes in exasperated inquiry.

“Shut up,” she muttered, easing him back against the bright grass and trying to believe that she could be grateful rather than terrified when he fell back obediently instead of resisting every attempt to help him.

“You can tell me how many different violations that is after Banner’s had a look at you, okay?”

“Four,” James told her at once. “Five including the bounds of standard etiquette, which Starfleet’s grading matrix doesn't take into account.”

Steph shrugged off her own jacket, which was all she had on hand that could serve as any kind of compress. James drew a ragged breath when she pressed down, hard, on the wound she still hadn’t looked at properly.

“I’m sorry,” she muttered. His eyes widened fractionally, and Steph’s breath caught as she realized it was the first time she’d said it. “James-”

“I know,” he admitted. His voice was low and uneven, but his eyes were full of understanding. “Captain-”

“Stephanie,” she whispered, dangerously close to begging. It had been so long since he’d said her name.

“You used to call me Stephanie.”

He seemed to try, but broke off the attempt, coughing weakly. Steph closed her eyes, just for a second, against the sight of his lips stained green with blood. She opened them again when she felt the brush of his fingertips, heartbreakingly tentative, against her cheek.

“Don’t,” he whispered, still somehow managing to sound like he was the reasonable one in their partnership.

“It was logical."

Before Steph could demand how the hell he figured that, her first officer caught one of her hands and cradled it gently in his own.

“Fighting with you has been my greatest privilege,” he murmured. The quirk of his lips said that he’d spoken deliberately, and meant it both ways. Steph stifled a sob, pressing down harder even as he shuddered under the hand he wasn’t already holding. 

“James, please-”

“Stephanie.”

He touched two of his fingers to hers the way he’d pointed out to her on Vulcan once. Among touch telepaths, he’d told her almost wistfully, it was a deeply intimate gesture.

“Live long and prosper, ashalik.”

She grabbed blindly for her comm-link when it flared to life again.

“Tony,” she rasped, not even waiting for him to speak first. "Get us out of here, now.”

She had barely finished speaking when she felt the always-weird tug in her belly which meant they were moving. A second later the damp grass was gone, replaced by the hard, humming flooring she knew so well. Steph heard Tony’s triumphant greeting change mid-sentence into a startled call for medical, but she never even looked away from her first officer until Dr. Banner took over the rough, alarmingly rapid compressions she had started.

“Captain.”

She turned to find her first officer’s closest friend watching her with the deceptive serenity demanded by Vulcan propriety.

“He’ll be all right,” Steph muttered, because it was true- had to be true. "It was only a knife, he’s been shot at point-blank range and just walked away.”

T’asha raised one slanted eyebrow, but did not comment on the futility of offering such assurances without any hope of guaranteeing them.

“The life debt is repaid,” she said instead, speaking so calmly that it took Stephanie a moment to realize what that even meant. When she did, the horror of it left her breathless all over again.

“No,” she protested, fighting the urge to scream. "No, I _told_ him it was-”

“Your feelings are noted,” T’asha interrupted evenly. She didn’t have to say much else- everyone in the Alpha quadrant knew what Vulcan thought about _feelings_. “Nevertheless.”

She touched the captain’s elbow, an acquired gesture James must have told her humans would understand was meant to soften the blow of what she had to say.

“If he survives you must allow him his choice.”

Steph clenched her hands in wordless protest, not sure whether she objected more to ‘if’ or ‘allow,’ but there was very little she could do but nod.

“Go with him,” she whispered, permission and dismissal as well as a deeply personal request T’asha could not fail to understand. She nodded, brisk and sure, and disappeared swiftly in the direction of sickbay.

“Cap?”

That was Tony, no longer at the transporter controls. Her engineer was watching her uncertainly, ready to help but as out of his element as ever when emotions ran high. He caught Steph’s arm when she stumbled clumsily in his direction.

“Hey,” he said gently. "Should we get you checked out too?”

James would have insisted, but Steph wasn’t about to waste anyone’s time when they could be saving her first officer’s life. She opened her mouth to say she would be fine until Banner had more time, but that wasn’t what came out.

“If he dies-”

T’asha would almost certainly have pointed out that it was just this refusal to accept that some things were not in the captain’s power to dictate that had landed them in their present situation, but Tony just pulled his long-time friend and some-time captain into a hug.

“He won’t,” he muttered, trying to maintain the levity in his voice. “That kid is way too stubborn to go out without more of a bang.”

“He is,” Steph whispered, trying not to think about _worse_ ways James could die."He’s the most stubborn son of a bitch in the quadrant and I _hate_ that about him.”

“Well,” Tony demurred, smiling. “Second most, counting you. Third if we give Bruce the credit he deserves. And you only hate it because he never lets anyone but T'asha win an argument.”

It was a fair assessment, Steph had to concede. 

“He must know I love him, though, right?”

Tony froze, taken aback, but Steph could almost hear the smirk in his voice.

“Everyone you two've ever met knows that, Cap, and even if we didn’t he’s a telepath anyway.”

Steph nodded again, praying that Tony knew what he was talking about, and closed her eyes so she couldn't see the blood on her hands anymore.


	2. the seven-year itch

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Steph finds out too much and not enough, almost too late.

_(nine weeks earlier- twelve weeks until Tar'Hana rendezvous)_

Steph had spent most of the afternoon shift, bored and lonely without her first officer to entertain her, trying to decide how best to demand an update from his doctor without provoking a tirade on the subject of patient confidentiality. When she got to sickbay, though, she discovered that someone else had beaten her to the punch. The conversation seemed to be winding to a close- T’asha was on her feet, allowing Dr. Banner to shepherd her towards the door as they wrapped things up.

“-make him comfortable. Let me know if there’s anything I can do.”

“Unlikely,” T’asha said crisply; Steph found herself grinning at the Vulcan girl’s quiet, wholly justified confidence in her own abilities.

“But possible,” Dr. Banner pressed.

“Theoretically,” T’asha conceded reluctantly; the doctor nodded with exaggerated patience.

“In which case, theoretically, you’ll let me know if there’s anything I can do. Yes?”

T’asha’s eyes softened in her equivalent of a smile.

“Yes. Thank you, Doctor.”

Steph cleared her throat loudly, and felt her last lingering hope that she was being paranoid evaporate when T’asha’s spine stiffened perceptibly at the sight of her.

“Captain,” she said evenly, meeting Steph’s eyes with the bland professionalism Tony still insisted must be a taught course at the VSA. Stephanie did her best to look like she hadn’t been eavesdropping shamelessly.

“Evening, Lieutenant. Doctor Banner. Everything all right?”

“Indeed.”

T’asha stayed where she was, holding Steph’s gaze with polite attention, but it was obvious that she was waiting to be dismissed rather than gathering her thoughts to offer the captain a more illustrative response. Steph waved her off with a smile. Mindful of her science officer’s Vulcan hearing, she waited just a little longer than necessary before rounding on the doctor.

“Were you two talking about James?”

He’d been a little …off recently, jittery and sharp in a way Steph had never associated with her second in command. James had brushed her off every time she tried to ask about it, but when he’d missed their shift for the first time since they’d left Earth she had known she hadn’t been imagining things. Dr. Banner failed to suppress an impatient sigh.

“I’m much more used to saying this to Tony, but: you know I’m not allowed to talk to you about my other patients.”

“You were,” Steph decided. “Is he sick or did something happen when they were sparring? I told him her  _Navorkot_  programme was going to give him a concussion one day.”

“I’m really not comfortable discussing this, Captain.”

Stephanie felt her smile slip at his tone.

“This is serious,” she realised. The doctor looked away, done trying to tell her he wasn’t about to betray patient confidentiality just because she was worried. Steph’s eyes narrowed- if things were as bad as all that, she thought, the doctor should be dealing with his patient directly rather than letting T’asha do the heavy lifting.

“Is he being difficult about this? I could-”

Bruce stopped her with a hand on her forearm, forceful almost to the point of being rough.

“Stephanie. As both your doctor and his, I’m strongly advising you not to get involved unless he brings it up himself, all right?”

The look in his eyes was hard, just short of accusing- he was worried too, Steph thought, but he was also deadly serious. She nodded reluctantly- she hadn’t survived two years in the Beta Quadrant by doubting the judgment of her senior staff- and promised herself that she’d look in on James in the morning if she hadn’t heard from him by then.

It didn’t take that long. Stephanie was shaken from an uneasy rest by the hiss of her own door opening. She was already reaching for her phaser when her first officer’s hand closed, gentle but unyielding, over her wrist.

“You don’t need that,” he breathed, watching her with oddly darkened, almost pleading eyes.

“You must know I would never hurt you.”  

Steph found herself nodding as she let him lower her arm- she’d never doubted that.

“Of course I know that. James, you’re burning up.”

Normally his temperature ran lower than was standard for humans, but Steph felt like her own skin was overheating everywhere they were in contact.

“Yes,” the commander agreed gravely- still in that strange, guttural voice.

“Ashalik, you can’t imagine how I burn for thee.”

“Come sit,” Steph murmured, trying not to react to the undisguised desire in her first officer’s eyes. He wasn’t well, she reminded herself sharply- he couldn’t know what he was doing.

“You need to see Doc Banner, okay?”

He’d let her tug him closer, but instead of perching on the edge of her bed as he had done the only other time he’d ever been in her quarters James grabbed Steph’s other wrist and pulled her easily into his arms. She drew a sharp breath, somewhere between shocked and awed, as he bent to whisper almost against her ear.

“That’s not what I need, Steph.”

He’d never said her name like _that_ before.

“James,” she muttered uneasily, unable to take a step back because the backs of her knees were already brushing the bed but keenly aware that he wasn’t in his right mind.

“Listen, sweetheart-”

His eyes widened as she froze, but before Steph could even think of explaining her error James’s grip on her shoulders went slack, his eyes falling shut as T’asha stepped out of the shadows to take his weight before he collapsed. Nerve pinch, Steph realised vaguely.

“Is he okay?”

T’asha nodded, looking not at Steph but at the boy in her arms.

“Please accept my apologies and his. He has been unwell.”

“Is this the mating sickness?”

 She knew she’d guessed right when T’asha closed her eyes, obviously fighting emotions she would be honour-bound to deny if Stephanie dared to try and console her.

“I’m sorry,” the captain muttered- everyone at Starfleet knew that the Vulcan High Command would never have shared what little information they had if not for the USS Enterprise and its first run-in with the condition,  not to mention the diplomatic fiasco that had almost resulted from Kirk’s attempt to solve a problem he’d known next to nothing about. Steph didn’t have to ask why James hadn’t said anything, or why he’d been so on edge- of course he would have hoped that his hybrid biology would sway human in this regard, and of course his Vulcan- bondmate, now, or soon- would insist on privacy at such a time.

“You don’t have to tell me anything. You can just- you know. Go sort him out, right? I’ll put you both on leave for as long as you need. Or want, I guess.”

She was thoroughly taken aback by the wave of pure envy that was choking her attempt to speak kindly.

“Captain,” T’asha said softly, almost sympathetically. She still wasn’t looking at Steph, but watching the commander’s face as she stroked two fingers slowly from his temple to his jaw. “Our bond is not of that nature.”

'I burn for thee,' he had said. Steph nodded, a little stunned- James had never said a word, before, but he'd certainly acted like he meant it. T’asha swallowed once, steeling herself.

“He would never ask you for more than you could freely give.”

“Of course not,” Steph agreed, absently reaching to touch her first officer’s poor flushed cheek. She swallowed hard. “Okay.”

She saw T’asha’s fingers clench as though the Vulcan were considering slapping her hand away, but James’s self-appointed protector only raised an eyebrow in question.

“Captain?”

Steph wondered if she was blushing as fiercely as it felt like she was, and fought a nervous giggle at the out-of-nowhere thought that there would be something distinctly festive about the Avenger’s command team, all lit up in red and green.

“Okay,” she repeated, more firmly. “I’m in. Wake him up and get the hell out of here so we can fix this before he loses it completely.”

“Thank you,” T’asha whispered. When she raised her eyes, it was to let the captain see all the warmth and affection James had always insisted was there if only she chose to show it. “We are grateful, Captain, but he has made his choice.”

“Yeah, which is …me, right? Look, can you just let him up so we can talk _to_ him instead of _about_ him?”

T’asha shook her head, resolute.

“It will be less painful for him if I ‘let him up’ after we return to my quarters.”

Stephanie frowned.

“You _just_ said-“

“Our people mate for life, Captain.”

Steph fought, and mostly failed, to keep the hurt out of her voice.

“And, what, he’d rather _die_ than marry me?”

T’asha went as far as to grasp Steph’s arm.

“He had no desire to make such a choice for you, nor have you make it under these circumstances. Besides which you are human, and less…robust than my species.”

“He wouldn’t hurt me,” Steph protested, still fighting inappropriate laughter at the sheer ridiculousness of their third-party discussion of the situation.

“And even if he would, I mean- if the alternative is to just let him _die_ then I’m in anyway, and let’s just have Doc Banner on standby, okay?“

“Your courage is commendable,” T’asha noted stiffly. “But James has never valued his life above his integrity, and he was quite clear that it was not a risk he was willing to take.”

The captain screwed her eyes shut, horrified by T’asha’s willingness to talk like her best friend's death was a foregone conclusion but determined not to play to the stereotype of the hysterical human.

“Are you really asking me to stand by and let him throw everything away because he’s scared of-“

It had been a mistake to insinuate that fear had anything to do with it. T’asha drew herself up, cold and unbending.

“No one is asking you to do anything but respect the choice he made himself.”

She got to her feet in a single, mortifyingly graceful motion that barely jostled her still-unconscious charge.

“He called me ‘ashalik,’” Steph said quietly. The only time she had ever heard that word before was when the Vulcan ambassador and his wife had come to see the ship where their daughter and near-ward made their home. James had refused to tell her what it meant, then, but he must have known that Steph had a dictionary of her own, and was perfectly capable of using it.

“I’m sorry,” T’asha muttered. “He would have liked to tell you himself, if only-“

She drew an unsteady breath, dropping her head until she regained her composure.

“It came on so quickly,” she admitted. “For so long we hoped his mother’s genes would be enough to spare him, but they only muted the signs that would have helped him prepare.”

Prepare _to die_ , she might as well have said. Stephanie swallowed hard, trying not to imagine it.

“You’ll stay with him.”

“Of course.”

When they were gone, she collapsed across her bed and breathed in the heady incense James only ever used when T’asha insisted on it. It took her maybe twenty minutes to figure out a diversion that would require the science officer’s immediate attention without actually doing her ship any real damage. Steph waited another hour or so, mostly so that T’asha wouldn’t put two and two together, then gave the word to set her little plan in action. She could lose her command over this, probably- but if she didn’t do anything she was guaranteed to lose her closest friend.

“Stupid martyr complex,” she muttered, keying in her captain’s override for the first time since she’d been authorised to use them. “Stupid goddamn Vulcan-trained Romulan idiots with stupid mixed-up ideas about chivalry. Of course I’m not going to just give up on you because you say so.”


	3. some like it hot

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Steph makes an executive decision; the fall-out is rapid and severe.

The doors slid open, engulfing Steph in a cloud of dry heat made more arid still by the smoky incense T’asha had presumably hoped would help James stay calm. It didn’t really work, he had complained to Steph more than once, well out of T’asha’s hearing- for the most part meditation just made him sleepy.

“James? You okay, sweetheart?”

There was that word again, unbidden on her lips but wholly meant. Stephanie sighed deeply when she made out the dark head almost concealed by a messy heap of blankets on the bed. She edged closer, fighting the edge of panic that came with wondering whether her first officer was asleep, unconscious, or worse. She reached out, heart thudding in her chest already, and ran two fingers gently along his cheek the way T’asha had done before. Her fingertips had barely grazed his temple when James’s eyes shot open.

“Captain,” he muttered restlessly. Steph let her hands drop to his arms, steadying him gently even as he shivered and jerked at the contact, watching her with feverish, almost frightened eyes. “You’re not supposed to be here.”

“Because you want someone else here, you mean, or because you think you’ll hurt me if I stay?”

“You don’t want this, and I won’t make you-”

“How do you know what I want, if you won’t even ask?” 

“You don’t understand,” the commander protested. “It’s not just-”

He pulled away with a gasp when Stephanie took his face into her hands, forcing him to look at her.

“What’s not to understand, huh?”

The gentle slide of her thumbs against his jaw provoked a full-body shudder that rocked them both. “I’m not losing you to a goddamn fever, is that clear?”

When Steph planted one knee on the mattress, pretending more confidence than she really felt, James grasped her thigh to draw her closer instead of shoving her off. His eyes were wretched with hope.  

“Stephanie, I-“

“Shut up,” Steph ordered, and bent to cover his mouth with hers before she lost her nerve. It wasn’t a very good kiss, artless and messy and too inexperienced by half, but by the time they broke for air Steph was straddling her first officer in his bed, running her hands over his shoulders and down his back as James gasped against her neck.  

“Steph, Stephanie-”

“I’m here,” she promised, watching his eyes steadily as she caught his hand and raised it carefully to her face. “Take what you need, all right?”

She had been prepared for ‘my mind to your mind,’ but the words James spoke instead had all the weight of an eternal vow.

“Ashalik,” he murmured with the same reverence as he had shown before. “Stephanie, my first and final choice.”

Before Steph could think of responding he had initiated the meld, and Steph had very little choice but to let her eyes slip shut as the tide of it swept over them, licking at every nerve, every spark of thought, every whispered breath until there was nothing left of either one except what they chose to share.

“James,” she breathed, and felt his joy light their whole being from within.

* * *

The next time Steph was aware of opening her eyes it was to find the harsh white walls of sickbay glaring back at her, and her first officer running a dermal regenerator over her midriff with meticulous attention. She lay still for a second, blinking stupidly, then shot up in alarm as the pieces crashed back into place.

“Hey,” she started groggily. “Are you-”

“Much better,” he assured her, trying to smile. “The blood fever has abated.”

Stephanie frowned- his tone was so clinical that he may as well have been talking to a stranger.

“What is it? What’s wrong?”

In answer, James tugged her sleeve back to reveal an ugly, spreading bruise that fit almost exactly to his palm.

 “Oh no,” Steph breathed. “James, you know that’s not-”

“The doctor saw to your other injuries himself,” the commander told her, dispassionately enough to give T’asha a run for her money. “Banner says the bruising is to be expected in a first-time encounter between two species of different typical strengths.”

His hands were gentle as he finished his task, but he still hadn’t met Steph’s eyes.  “He also said some bleeding was natural, the first time.”

Steph felt her heart plummet as his voice faltered at the end.

“Listen, I-”

“You don’t owe me an explanation, Captain.”

Steph gave an uneasy bark of laughter.

“You really wanna go with ‘Captain’ for this conversation?”

“I think that would be for the best.”

“You’re going to say you have to leave,” Steph realized. Thank god he had to look away- thank _god_ James couldn’t nod and smile like it was easy.

“The VSA ship _Tar’Hana_ will be in range in twelve weeks. Given the circumstances, I had thought of asking Captain T’lera to approve a transfer.”

Three months was much, much sooner than Steph had imagined even T’asha’s father could possibly arrange.

“You don’t have to do that.”

She used the edge of the cot to lever herself upright so it felt less like he was towering over her. “We can find another way, all right?”

James drew his slanted brows together.

“It’s because you insist on finding ‘another way’ that this is necessary, Captain.”

Steph had never resented her own title before.

“No,” she growled, deeply frustrated. “We’re in this mess because your beloved Vulcans seem to think that hiding behind however many centuries of tradition and superstition has any chance in hell of saving anyone from their own biology, which- one, I think that’s the most illogical thing I’ve ever said out loud, okay? And- two, you’re not even goddamn Vulcan anyway so I don’t understand why you keep giving them the final say in everything you do.”

James looked faintly hurt at that, but he just inclined his head stiffly.

“Your opinion is noted, Captain. Would you like to see my communications to Captain T’lera before they are dispatched, or-”

“What if I won’t let you go?”

He looked at her like Stephanie had started speaking Talaxian.

“I don’t think Starfleet’s approval is-”

“I’m not asking as your captain,” Stephanie snapped. “Don’t you think the VSA will want to know what your bondmate has to say about where you end up?”

Not six hours ago he had been all tender words, ‘my first and final choice,’ and now he was going pale at the very suggestion that they’d ever been anything but colleagues.

“Captain, please-”

“No,” Stephanie snapped, annoyed now. “We’re not done talking about this. Go get some rest, okay?”

The commander’s expression hardly shifted, but it was scary how much the deadening of his eyes transformed his whole face.

“Am I the exception on this ship, or do you expect everyone who answers to you professionally to let you make all their decisions for them?”

That wasn’t fair, and Steph was sure he knew it. She decided she was sick of trying to spare the feelings James seemed to be intent on pretending he didn’t have anyway.

“I feel like Starfleet would have something to say about it if ‘everyone who answers to me professionally’ got away with what I let you do to me last night, don’t you?”

It came out all wrong, remorse and resentment twisting together to turn her words to poison.

“Wait, that’s not what I meant. James, listen-”

“You’ve made your feelings clear,” he ground out, not angrily but in the most defeated voice Steph had ever heard. “Don’t worry- I won’t forget what I owe you.” 

He was gone before Steph so much as found her voice. Stephanie took one stabilizing breath and then another, then gave up all her pretenses and sat back down, drawing her knees up to her chest so she could put her head down and cry until she couldn’t anymore. She heard the creak of the office door opening, but didn’t acknowledge the doctor until Bruce put his arms around her in an unexpected but desperately needed embrace. 

“I take it that could have gone better," he said when she was calm enough to speak. Steph sighed deeply, too tired even to lie to herself anymore. 

"I'm not sure it could have gone worse. Bruce, I don't know if I can fix this."


	4. something's got to give

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Paperwork has never been Steph's favourite thing. T'asha breaks a lot of Vulcan rules.

_(two weeks later- ten weeks until Tar’Hana rendezvous)_

Stephanie stalked out of the turbolift with her most rigid captain’s mask in place, trying very hard to believe that the flutter in her chest was some kind of cardiac arrhythmia rather than her reaction to the sight of her first officer running her ship with his usual efficiency. James was already rising smoothly- in two full years Steph had never managed to pry an explanation out of him, but he always, always knew it was her as soon as the doors opened.

“Captain on the bridge.”

“At ease,” she snapped, then scrounged up a smile because even if she wanted to wring his neck she knew James had more than enough to deal with without the crew spreading more rumours than they would anyway. “Commander, you’re with me.”

His eyebrow rose, either question or reaction, but he fell into step beside her without comment. Steph felt her shoulders tense when their science officer took a step forward as though she was tempted to intervene, but James caught her eye with an affectionate smile Steph had long since noticed he seemed to save just for T’asha.

“You have the bridge, Lieutenant.”

“Understood.”

Steph didn’t even try to follow the separate conversation that went on in the look that accompanied their brief exchange. She waited until her ready room was firmly locked, its sound barriers engaged, before whirling on her first officer.

“What the hell are you playing at?”

She was almost sure his blank look was unrehearsed, but it was harder to tell now that James only ever made eye contact when they were on duty, and even then only if he had no other choice. Instead of explaining, Stephanie shoved the file she had brought with her across the table so hard that she may as well have flung it at her first officer’s head. Of course he caught it deftly, nodding in recognition when he saw that it contained a sheaf of VSA documents. 

“Captain T’lera said she’d follow up with you directly- I mentioned this last week, I think?”

He had mentioned it, but even if he hadn’t Steph would never have stormed her own bridge looking for a fight over unexpected paperwork.

“I gotta say, she’s a hell of a lot more direct than you’ve had the decency to be.”

The wary look in his eyes- as if  _Steph_ was the one being unreasonable- set Steph’s teeth on edge. She waved an agitated hand in the direction of the folder he was still holding.

“Is this some kind of Vulcan divorce, or what?”

The documents Captain T’lera had sent over referred to Captain Rogers as the commander’s ‘acknowledged bondmate,’ then very swiftly moved on to ask her to formally release her mate from the ‘life debt’ so that he could be appointed to the _Tar’Hana_.

James shook his head.

“Almost the opposite- it’s a long-standing tradition used to demonstrate that both sides are amenable to the new arrangement.”

Stephanie thought she could very easily live long and prosper without ever having to hear about another long-standing Vulcan tradition, but she still had questions.

“Do they really call it that? The life debt?”

“Only rarely. It’s an archaic term- you can imagine how they used that kind of bargaining power in pre-Reform society.”

That did explain modern Vulcan’s near-total reticence on the subject. What it didn’t explain was what any of that had to do with Steph and her first officer.

“So, what, you’ll acknowledge me to Vulcan but not in the mess hall?”

He cringed.

“Captain-”

Stephanie rolled her eyes.

“See, this is why I have to ask. James, how can we be ‘acknowledged bondmates’ when we’re not even friends anymore?”

He staggered like she’d taken a bat to his knees, but when Stephanie stared him down, daring him to answer, he had to look away.

“I’m not signing anything,” she decided. “You still answer to Starfleet, Commander- tell your VSA they have no jurisdiction on my ship. You want out, you get clearance from _our_ people first.”

That was almost too harsh a reaction- given that Starfleet clearance could only be obtained with her approval, she was leaving James entirely dependent on her goodwill moving forward. Steph stared hard at the desk between them, hoping it was at least somewhat true that she was holding back for his own good, knowing the commander was a stellar officer and a great fit at Starfleet, rather than because she was a selfish, jealous bitch who couldn’t stand the thought of her first officer at someone else’s side. She felt hyper-sensitised to his presence, but James never even moved.

“Noted,” he said crisply. “If that’s all, Captain?”

Steph hated,  _hated,_ the way he could just turn on that Vulcan calm, shutting her out so completely when all she had to do was close her eyes to be able almost to taste the memory of him, on her skin and in her thoughts and everywhere between.

“Get out of my sight.”

As he had before- and presumably would again, since Steph could neither seem to speak to him like a civil human being nor even think of letting him leave her forever- James nodded once, turned on his heel, and left without a word. Steph gripped the edge of the table and counted almost to a hundred before she knew for sure she wasn’t going to scream. For the sake of appearances she decided she might as well catch up on paperwork in her office, so she was still sorting through leave applications and medical reports when she heard the steady rapping that could only mean T’asha was on the other side of the door.

“Come,” Steph said wearily, waving the science officer in. “This had better be about my ship.”

“In a way,” T’asha said, which was as good as ‘yeah, not really.’ She held out a PADD that seemed to contain annotated personnel files, as well as a pristine envelope adorned with Starfleet’s official letterhead.

“What the hell is this?”

“He did not think you would wish to speak again so soon. He has made some notes on suitable replacements.”

Apparently he’d taken her at her word- get out of my sight, she had hissed, and not two hours later he had called her bluff, offering his resignation without even showing up to tell her in person. It made sense- James almost always made _some_ kind of sense- but it also felt like being stabbed in the chest a dozen times, and hard.

“So that’s how it is, huh. Wham, bam, thanks by proxy, ma’am.”

Even when he wasn’t there, Steph thought ruefully, she couldn’t help lashing out. She glanced at T’asha, mostly hoping for the blank look that meant the Vulcan girl had missed the reference entirely, but found her looking as close to genuinely distressed as Steph had ever seen her.

“Is that really what you think?”

It wasn’t _really_ , but Steph wasn’t sure she had either the words or the wherewithal to explain everything she’d been feeling, least of all to someone used to the Vulcan emphasis on logic over all other means of processing events. She gave a hopeless, helpless kind of shrug.

“What else am I supposed to think, when he won’t even really look at me unless I’m halfway to screaming at him?”

T’asha glanced away, then squared her shoulders and met her captain’s eyes. Stephanie had gone to the commander against his stated wishes, she said in that awful, neutral voice, at a time when all known precedent suggested he was well beyond giving informed consent. Steph felt her blood chill.

“No, no- god, does he think I-“

She couldn’t even say it. T’asha touched her shoulder, as gentle as she’d ever been with anyone but James.

“He offered to show me the memory if I would not take his word for it that it was different between you. He believes his human blood mitigated the effect of the plak-tow.”

Steph didn't know what that was, but she didn't need T'asha to explain how extraordinary it was that they had ever even begun such a conversation.

“He got them to acknowledge me like that so your family can't press charges, is that it?”

“So they will understand that he never considered it an option.”

“Idiot,” Steph muttered- of course he would think of her career at the expense of his sanity- to say nothing of hers. She sighed deeply.

“I never know what he’s thinking anymore.”

 She hadn’t been expecting T’asha to take a hesitant step forward, her hand already slipping into the formation required for a meld.

“I could show you.”

Steph frowned, but didn't move out of the way immediately.

“Somehow I don’t think he’ll appreciate that.”

T’asha’s face was carefully blank.

“The cause is sufficient.”

That didn’t mean James would like it any more than Steph expected, but it did mean T’asha thought she knew something the captain needed to see so much that she was willing to defy all kinds of Vulcan tradition. It wasn’t really like she could make things any worse between them, Stephanie decided.  

“Do it.”

_James was on his knees when T’asha found him on the deserted observation deck- she considered the possibility that he might be meditating, or praying in the tradition of his own people._

_“Don’t,” he murmured. “I can’t get my shields right.”_

_That much she already knew, but not how he could possibly imagine it made any difference to her mission._

_“Come here, kalkam.”_

_He took her hand when she reached out to him, but only guide it to his shoulder with a terrible kind of specificity._

_“I wish you’d do it,” James whispered, eyes still on the deck. “It’d be easier for everyone, wouldn’t it?”_

_T’asha had no doubt that even her father would have forgiven her the rush of pure terror that robbed her of breath and composure at once._ Tal-shaya, _the mercy killing, was hardly an acceptable practice even when the circumstances were much more concrete than his unhappy conjecture._

_“No. Of course not.”_

_His shoulders slumped in defeat, but James must have expected her answer. T’asha dropped to her knees and pulled him into her arms, bracing them both against the tumult of his emotions._

_“Never. Why would you even think of it?”_

_His fingers brushed her face- not a full meld, but enough to share the things he couldn’t say. It had been everything he’d feared and worse- he wasn’t sure he would ever be able to close his eyes without seeing his precious bride suddenly a victim, closer to unconscious than asleep, breathing too shallowly with blood on the sheets and those cruel marks pressed dark into her skin._

_“I don’t know how to live with this.”_

_He kept thinking of his mother, also- bruised and broken because she had so loved a creature who could neither help nor change the fact of what he was. In that moment, illogical or not, T’asha wished fervently that she knew some way to take or share his grief. Because she did not, she only stroked his soft hair, as his mother had done when they were children and he was in distress, and did him the honour of acting as though she could not see the tears that wet his cheeks._

_“You can learn,” she murmured, not quite stern. There were ways, after all- though she could not bring herself to mention Kolinahr, not to her dear, too-human James. He was watching her now, with eyes far older than she remembered._

_“What if I don’t want to?”_

_T’asha took his face in her hands, not to meld but just to make sure he understood._

_“Then you do it because I want you to.”_

_His lips twitched, just a little- his best effort at a smile, just then._

_“Does everyone I love think they get to run my life?”_

_She brushed her fingers down his cheek, temple to jaw, still watching his eyes._

_“Only those you value most.”_

_He always tried, so hard, to keep his suffering off his face for her sake. It had never been necessary- her father had always said it was their place to give him access to their culture, so he would know he never had to be alone, but they had always respected his mother’s right to raise her boy as human too._

_“Hush,” she whispered, gathering him closer so he would not have to work so hard on her account._

_“James, I grieve with thee.”_

The memory ended before his hitching breath turned into a sob. Steph raised horrified, already-wet eyes to find T’asha watching her with a softer look than she had ever seen on a Vulcan face.

“No part of this has been easy for him,” she said quietly, eyes darting towards the letter now lying on Steph’s desk. “Please believe he only wants the best for you.”

The trouble, Steph was beginning to realise, was that they kept trying to get the best for each other without ever having any kind of conversation about what that might be.

“Dismissed,” she murmured, a little at a loss. “I’ll think about it, all right?”

God knew she’d had very little success thinking about anything else for days and weeks already. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> even here non-english endearments! 'kalkam' means little brother, more or less, in that it mashes together sa-kal, brother, and the suffix -kam which turns anything into an endearment. yes.


	5. don't bother to knock

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> an intrusion from an old friend of the worst kind

_(nine weeks, three days until Tar'Hana rendezvous)_

Alpha shift had already started by the time Steph got to the bridge- her own fault, really, for asking Lt. Richards an open-ended question about particle physics when she had to go on duty within the hour. She arrived to find James still in the captain’s chair, quizzing Ensign Parker on the intricacies of slipstream theory mostly to give the younger officer a chance to show off in front of T’asha. Barton, smirking already, was on the point of asking some hideously smart-assed question when the commander bolted to his feet, eyes suddenly sharp.

“Strengthen shields, Parker. Bridge crew to full alert. Captain-”

“Yeah, I see it.”

There was a definite trail of debris stretching out ahead of them- not just the usual jettisoned waste but full canisters of unused supplies and untapped fuel.

“You think there’s a wreck ahead?”

“That would be my guess.”

“It’s hardly a guess,” T’asha muttered, not quite grumbling. James shot her a look so fond that Steph felt her throat close up a little.

“That would be my hypothesis,” he drawled, rolling his eyes. T’asha nodded like a proud (for a Vulcan) parent.

“Better. It seems likely, Captain- those ion trails suggest that at least two ships passed this way- recently and in short succession.”

Steph nodded as James’s expression hardened- that could well mean that it had been an attack rather than an accident.

“Send out a hail, all frequencies.”

“Hailing,” Ensign Maximoff reported promptly. She frowned. “No response, Captain.”

“Try again.”

By this time T’asha’s scans had found the vessel, dead in space with only a few faint life signs still aboard. The others must have left in their escape pods, Barton ventured when Parker paled visibly- Steph nodded encouragingly even though they didn’t really have any way to know that.

“Still no response?”

Wanda shook her head helplessly.

“Seems like their comms systems are offline.”

They’d just have to go check on the survivors themselves, Steph decided. James frowned.

“Is that a good idea?”

What he meant was that there were any number of reasons a ship could go silent like that, and few of them boded well for the next people to stumble across the wreck. What Steph heard was that her first officer didn’t trust her judgment, her best friend no longer had her back, and her ‘acknowledged bondmate’ still wished she had chosen caution over saving his life.

“Relax,” she said tightly. “You’d have to stay here even if you were dying to come- Starfleet policy and all that.”

The others looked blank, but both James and T’asha stiffened at that. For security reasons as much as to avoid unnecessary tragedy, Starfleet strongly recommended that officers who were already serving notice be kept off away missions within the last several weeks of their time with the fleet. It was playing dirty, not least because Steph had neither acknowledged nor acted on James’s attempt to resign, but it was the only way she could think of to get him to stay put, and stay safe, without an argument neither of them had the time or energy to have. She chose her team, mostly from the medical and security divisions, and gave the order for them to meet her at the transporters. To her surprise, James moved to accompany her.

“Watch it,” she muttered as the lift doors closed behind them. “You keep doing things like this, I might think you still want to be friends or something.”

She almost cringed outright- Steph couldn’t remember the last time she’d tried to talk to James that hadn’t ended in disaster. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw his shoulders rise and fall in a silent sigh.

“Please be careful, Captain.”

He had to say that, though, because he _was_ still her first officer. Steph nodded, very formal.

“Look after my ship, Commander.”

After that, it wasn’t really surprising that he returned to the bridge instead of staying to see the team off. If Tony wondered about any part of it, he had the sense not to say anything in front of the others.

They materialized on the other ship’s bridge, which was completely deserted- and much, much more technologically advanced than its hulking exterior had suggested. It also seemed to be fitted out for exactly five key personnel- which just happened to be exactly the number of life signs they’d found.

“I don’t like this,” Steph decided. “Tony, immediate beam-out please.”

“Not this time, Stephanie.”

She could have gone a long, long time without hearing that voice again.

“Zemo,” she growled. The Cardassian grabbed her roughly, forcing her to her knees and dragging at her containment suit until her head and shoulders were exposed.

“I have her. Kill the others.”

“No! They’re-”

It was over in a second. As the rest of Zemo’s crew returned to their stations without so much as reacting to the multiple murder they’d just committed, their leader smiled coldly.

“I’ve been waiting a long time for this reunion. Onscreen.”

Steph made out Parker’s dismayed muttering before the image resolved to show her first officer, as coldly determined as any full-blooded Romulan commander, glaring back. Her captor’s voice grew almost affectionate as he addressed his one-time prisoner.

“James, how wonderful- you haven’t managed to get yourself killed after all.”

Zemo patted her arm, speaking conversationally now.

“I did wonder, when he wasn’t panting at your heels in the usual way.”

“Let her go, Zemo.”

For the first time since the blood fever fiasco had begun, Stephanie felt intensely grateful for her first officer’s Vulcan training- she knew his apparent calm was steadying the others too. The Cardassian laughed, running a possessive hand along Steph’s jaw.

“Why would I do that? She’ll make such a delicious addition to the Baron’s collection.”

Steph twisted in his grasp, almost physically repelled as he bent closer like he was trying to breathe her in.

“Our first Starfleet captain. Strucker will be _very_ pleased.”

James raised his eyebrow, totally unimpressed.

“What’s one in several hundred? You already know how likely you are to find another Rihan hybrid.”

Steph swallowed a gasp that would only have encouraged Zemo. On her own bridge, she saw Barton tense as T’asha’s hand brushed the commander’s wrist in a silent appeal. James didn’t take it back, though- if the Cardassian chose to release his new trophy in favour of resuming the experiment Steph and her crew had interrupted a year earlier, James was apparently prepared to make the exchange. Zemo smiled as widely as Steph had ever seen a member of his species smile.

“You two really are precious. It’s not that I’m not tempted, Commander, but I know what your people are like- the second I lower my shields your engineer will make a grab for your captain, and where will that leave me?”

“Alive and in possession of a ship,” James offered, very calm. “Which is more than I can guarantee if you force us to come after you.”

Zemo shook his head.

“Such a charmer. Say goodbye, Stephanie. James, I do hope we’ll meet again someday.”

She heard the hiss of a hypospray as he gave the order to go to warp, and had just enough time to be fervently grateful that she’d left her James safely on their own ship before she lost consciousness.  

When Steph opened her eyes, it was to a horror she’d never imagined. She was in a suspended animation chamber, but fully conscious- the better to interact with, one of Zemo’s underlings told her with a truly awful grin. Her captors controlled how much she could move, speak, and hear- and if Strucker chose to preserve her “for the long term” then they could take all that away as well. But not yet, they said cheerfully- Zemo had control of the facility while the Baron was away, and he had been looking forward for _months_ to leaving Captain Rogers to rot until there was nothing left of the fighting spirit in which his dear James had put so much faith.

_I hope he knows we’ll all be old and grey before that happens._

Stephanie blinked, wondering if containment sickness could really take effect so quickly- not that she knew how long she’d been unconscious. For one panicked moment, she wondered if her people knew she was still alive.

 _Of course we know,_ she imagined her first officer saying, voice almost sharp in his urgency. _We’ll find you, Captain._    

It felt just like his own quiet strength, soothing every hurt as he enveloped her in a mental hug which Steph thought _might_ be possible for a telepath- except he was a _touch_ telepath god alone knew how many lightyears away.

 _You’ll_ find me, she thought- T’asha and her people would scour every galaxy until they found the clue they needed to locate Strucker’s stronghold, and Tony would do whatever it took to get the ship there in one piece, but she knew without wondering how she knew that it would be James who found her.

_We’re coming, I promise._

The James in her head was all gentle affection, warm like the caressing hands she’d been trying to forget for weeks. Steph’s vision swam with unexpected tears- she’d been missing him so much, and for so long, and she wanted _so much_ for things to be as easy between them in real life.

_I’m going to help you sleep, okay? We’ll be there as soon as we can._

Apparently she _was_ losing her mind already. Steph knew she should fight harder- but she also knew she had very little hope of getting out of this one until Zemo was back to be baited into lowering the stasis field.

“Thanks,” she said out loud, and could have sworn she felt his fingers brush her hair as she drifted into a deep, blessedly dreamless sleep.

It went on like that- long days spent, either alone or in the company of Zemo's goons, strange nights spent trying not to hope for the whisper of imagined assurances she couldn't afford to hope meant anything in real life- until Steph woke to the dull pain of her own knees hitting the steel flooring of the cell in which she was being held. Zemo, back at last, was barely able to suppress his gleeful laughter long enough to deliver the blow that had brought him rushing back to gloat.

“Your young man was as good as his word,” he told Stephanie brightly- very nearly admiringly.

“Unfortunately your people did not account for the particular composition of the air here, and lost control of their shuttle. It only took one or two well-placed shots to make sure they couldn’t recover.”

Steph closed her eyes, unwilling to believe it. She would know, she thought- if he’d gone and got himself killed surely, _surely_ , she’d know without having to be told. Zemo gave a cackle of anticipation.

“I’ve ordered them to salvage what they can. I do hope his skull is intact- he had such fine bone structure.”

“You’re a monster,” Stephanie hissed; Zemo smiled sweetly.

“Don’t be jealous. You’re very welcome to whatever you’d like- I’m sure we can think of something. A necklace, perhaps? He had very elegant hands.”

The last time Zemo had taken an interest in her first officer’s hands it had taken Banner almost a week to be completely sure James wouldn’t lose one of them for good. Steph flew at him, clawing at her captor with a shriek that didn’t quite drown out his delighted laughter. Fortunately, it _did_ distract him from the figure Steph had already made out shimmering into being behind him. Her first officer could have taken Zemo out with a single phaser shot, but James made sure their tormentor was conscious for every precise blow. He did have very elegant hands, Steph decided, even when they were shaking with the force of everything he was feeling. His face was impassive, his voice deadly calm.

“Did he hurt you?”

“I’m fine.”

“That’s not what I asked.”

“Don’t, James.”

That, apparently, was all it took. He nodded once, then hurled Zemo into an empty cage as easily as if he did that sort of thing for fun.

“You’re alive because she chose that for you," he told the Cardassian with undisguised loathing. "If she ever changes her mind-”

James left the threat dangling between them, activating the stasis field before Zemo could respond.

“You better not have let Tony beam you here from the shuttle,” Steph growled as he turned towards her, grasping her hands through the bars for a long, stabilizing moment. The maneuver was strictly prohibited, and would probably have been impossible for a lesser pilot working with any other technician, but her first officer just smirked.

“Had to be seen to be believed,” he said mildly; on their ship, that phrase had come to mean that James had discovered something wildly illegal happening on the lower decks, but was dealing with it so Steph wouldn’t have to get involved and bring everything on the record.

“You’re both idiots,” Steph grumbled. “ _That’s_ the guy you left in charge of my ship?”

She had to let go of his hands to get out of the way, staying as far back as she could so James could blast the lock and let her out. To her surprise- and possibly his as well, in that it didn’t seem at all like he’d been thinking about doing it- James didn’t step aside to let her out, but came into the cell with her so he could throw his arms around her.

“You’re okay,” he breathed, and Steph knew it was as much for his own benefit as for hers. Overwhelmed with tenderness- his as much as hers, creating a very particular kind of feedback loop- Steph pressed her hand to his cheek so he could feel her relief and gratitude as well.

“You don’t owe me anything, okay?”

As was becoming standard when Steph tried to talk to her first officer, it wasn’t at all what she’d thought she was going to say. “I don’t care what they call it, it’s not about that when it’s you and me.”

James nodded, stroking his hands down her arms as if checking for irregularities.

“You’re sure you’re all right?”

His eyes searched hers, stern but also plainly scared- James knew as well as anyone alive just how much Zemo liked to watch his playthings suffer. Steph smiled, feeling more like herself than she had in weeks. She tapped his cheek gently with the fingers still resting against it.

“I’m fine, James.”

One of his hands rose to close gently about her wrist. He was struggling with himself, she thought, still trying to pin down the words that had been eluding them for days and weeks.

“Captain, I-”

His head snapped to the right before Steph made out the distant clatter of Zemo's men returning to report that the shuttle they had found had been unmanned.

“We have to go." 

James all but carried her out of the cell, positioning himself to give Steph as much cover as possible while she set the phaser he’d handed her to kill. They made it all the way outside before Zemo’s security guys found them, but even then six guys were hardly a match for Captain Rogers and her second-in-command.

“You can say it,” she smirked as James knocked another unfortunate out with something that had started out as a nerve-pinch and quickly turned into a judo throw. “We’re much better at fighting on the same side.”

He grinned like he hadn’t in weeks, then yanked her behind him as the last of Zemo’s squad lunged at her with a knife. Steph took the guy out easily with a single shot, already shouting into her communicator as though speaking more loudly would help the engineer get a lock on their position. James shot her an exasperated look, caught her gently by the elbow, and tugged her out into the blue and orange jungle Steph had had no idea was in her immediate vicinity. They made it almost four miles before Steph even realized he’d been injured.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> for the record, right, it never even crossed my mind to use SPACE NAZIS even though there are solid canonical examples in Star Trek.


	6. river of no return

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> aftermath of drama

_(three weeks until Tar'Hana rendezvous)_

Banished to her quarters to rest, Steph spent a whole four minutes staring at the ceiling before the persistent image of her first officer murmuring his goodbyes with blood on his lips proved too much to bear. She jumped to her feet, dragged on a robe, and was almost all the way to sickbay before her chief navigator intercepted her.

“Cap,” Clint Barton grinned, falling into step like they were just heading to the mess for lunch. “Aren’t you supposed to be in bed?”

“How did you find me?”

Clint had been working with Steph long enough to understand at once that she didn’t mean the medical alert Tony must have put on her quarters. The navigator shrugged eloquently.

“Thank God for Vulcan telepathy, you know? Again.”

The _Tar’Hana_ had featured prominently even in the micro-summary Tony had given Steph of the _six weeks_ she’d been away, Captain T’lera having gone out of her way to stay in range and provide what support her people could. Steph tilted her head, trying not to picture a whole ship of Vulcans scanning for telepathic signals like so many living tricorder nodes.

“How did they figure it out?”

Clint shook his head, faintly surprised.

“It wasn’t them- I meant the Commander. T’asha said you’d know when he found you.”  

Steph’s breath caught, but they reached sickbay before she could demand whether Clint was trying to tell her she _hadn’t_ been imagining her bondmate’s voice in her head for weeks on end. Ensign Maximoff, who served as field medic and therefore occasionally surgical assistant when he wasn’t bothering his sister or working with Clint in navigation, flashed a smile as they entered.

“Cap! Good to see ya.”

“He’s resisting the trance,” Bruce growled before Steph had to ask. “T’asha’s keeping him under for now, but we really need him to take over so she can get over there for the transfusion.”

“Hey,” Clint frowned, putting himself between T’asha and the doctor without letting go of Steph. “Go easy, Doc, she can’t be everywhere at once.”  

“Obviously,” Bruce agreed irritably, “but if he bleeds out before we’re done here then it’s over no matter where she is, so if _you_ want to be the one to choose between brain death and exsanguination please, by all means, feel free to- Captain?”

He cut himself off, apparently surprised into silence by the sheer intimacy of Steph’s fingertips brushing her first officer’s pale, pale cheek.

“I could hang onto him, maybe, while you guys get the other thing set up.”  

Everyone not involved in a life-saving mind meld paused to stare at their captain, startled into silence. Maximoff glanced between Steph and the doctor with eager curiosity.

“Since when is Cap a telepath too?”

“She’s not a telepath,” Barton snapped, still defensive, but he glanced back over just in case. “Are you?”

“He found me down there,” Steph muttered, confidence flagging in the face of their confusion. “I thought maybe that means we have some kind of connection I could use, if you need T’asha elsewhere.”

The doctor, who knew much more than the other two about why Steph might have been thinking along those lines, looked intrigued.

“It could work, if she can put you two in touch. T’asha?”

“I will attempt it.”  

That was terse even by Vulcan standards- T’asha would never admit it, Steph realized, but she was as worried as they had ever seen her. Clint was frowning again.

“Is this a good idea? She doesn’t have any training- no offence, Cap, I just mean we already know how much it takes out of them even with however many years of practice.”

When Steph set her jaw in the way her bridge officers knew meant there was no further point in trying to argue, her navigator looked to the doctor for some kind of medical veto. Bruce, however, had always made it his policy to take his cue from the most reliable conscious telepath instead of calling the shots when it came to psychic healing.

“I’m in favour of anything that will get him that blood sooner rather than later. As long as you’re both willing-”

Both women nodded; the doctor did as well. “Then I say go for it.”

There was very little they could do to make it worse, after all. Steph moved to stand next to T’asha.

“What do I do?”

Long fingers closed around her wrist, guiding Steph’s hand into position.

“It will not be like the last time,” T’asha warned her. “Quite likely your mind will parse the experience as a conversation in a setting familiar to both of you.”

“Okay,” Steph murmured, surer than ever that her instincts were right- her skin was already starting to hum with the promise of the meld. “So we talk somewhere we know. And then?”

“He must choose to come back with you.”

Steph swallowed hard.

“What if he doesn’t want that?”  

T’asha opened her eyes for the first time since Steph had come into sickbay, pinning the captain to the spot with a stare that was piercing even for her.

“He must come back with you, Captain.”

Her expression softened, ever so subtly, when Steph gave a single, determined nod.

“Please be careful,” T’asha murmured, so quietly that Steph wasn’t sure Barton or Maximoff would be able to make out the words. “He will not forgive himself a second time.”

“I can do this,” Steph promised, mostly because there was no other acceptable outcome. T’asha inclined her head, then let go of Steph’s wrist to reach for her meld points.

“Be as one,” she said quietly, using another version of the meditation Steph had never heard before. “As chosen so bound. You are one.”

Steph had no recollection of closing her eyes, but she must have done because she opened them again to find herself on her feet inside one of her ship’s short-range shuttles. In spite of everything, the familiar sight of her first officer at the controls made her smile. James didn’t seem to be pursuing any course in particular, but just keeping the small craft steady while it drifted in space. In the distance, their ship gleamed like a beacon in the light of some faraway sun. Steph felt her smile widen into a grin- as metaphors went, it wasn’t exactly three-dimensional chess.

“You gonna take us home, or what?”

Of course it couldn’t be that easy, but her heart still sank when James shook his head without looking round.

“You shouldn’t have come after me.”

His voice was soft and steady, giving absolutely no sign of whether he was thinking of the present case, the blood fever, or any other time Steph had disregarded standard regulations and direct orders alike to make sure her first officer made it back to their ship in one piece. She found herself laughing, the sound somehow both fraught and fond.

“That’s what we do, though, isn’t it?”

She didn’t have to say she knew he’d never for one second considered leaving her on her own with Zemo and Strucker. In front of her, James gave a heart-wrenchingly weary sigh.

“Sometimes I wish you wouldn’t.”  

It probably wasn’t the time for _that_ conversation, but Steph found herself suddenly on familiar ground.

“Because you want someone else here or because you think you’ll hurt me?”

The shuttle lurched violently- there was more than one way to touch a nerve in their present situation.

“Go back to the ship, Stephanie.”

It was better than Captain, at least. Watching him closely, and trying to remember that she couldn’t really misspeak insofar as she was already _in his head_ and therefore beyond being misinterpreted, Steph reached out to lay one of her hands on his shoulder.

“I think we both know I’m not leaving here without you.”

He turned at that. It was the play T’asha couldn’t afford, after all, or wouldn’t have thought to try- somehow it was difficult to imagine anyone from Vulcan saying something quite so emotional, even illogical, and meaning it completely. For a moment James just stared- then he let his eyes fall shut, less as though resistance was futile and more as though he didn’t have the strength left to try it. The stars outside seemed to dim and fade around them in response; Steph’s free hand found her first officer’s other shoulder, pressing him into his seat like she was afraid James would beam himself into deep space without further warning. He flinched but didn’t pull away, his pure exhaustion a palpable force choking the air around them.

“Talk to me,” Steph begged. In the meld, she could hardly pretend to be unaware of the catch in her voice. “I just want to help, sweetheart.”

James went still under her hands, raising his eyes at last.  

“How can you still call me that?”

This time, Steph was fairly certain that the wave of emotion that rocked their small ship was hers.

“How can I not?”

He didn’t seem to know what to make of that. There was something wistful in his expression, Steph thought, but James was already shaking his head.

“Steph, I-“

“Told me what I was getting into,” she interrupted sternly. “Gave me time to change my mind. Tried to do what you thought was right for us afterwards. Warned me not to go out there without you, and then found me when no one else would have known where to start. Risked your life for me _again_ even though you’ve been going crazy about the fact that I would- I will, even, as many times as it takes- do that for you just the same.”

She risked a smile, strangely touched by James’s wide-eyed silence.

“Did I miss anything?”

He wrapped one hand around her forearm, fingertips barely grazing her skin.

“I hurt you.”

“Not on purpose,” Steph protested. No worse than she had hurt him afterwards, she could easily have added. “It wasn’t your fault, all right?”

She hadn’t been expecting James to let himself go limp, slumping forwards until he was resting his head against Steph's chest. The hand that wasn’t still resting gently over the captain’s found her waist as if to help her take his weight.  

“I’m so tired, Steph.”

She could only imagine.  

“I hear that can happen, you know, when you have to run a ship and find your girl and keep both Starfleet and the VSA in the loop the whole time.”

Her fingers found his, touching them together the way James had done it on the planet.  

“Let me take you home, okay? We’ll figure this out after you've had a chance to rest.”

He didn’t speak for long enough that Steph was beginning to seriously wonder what her next move could possibly be when James finally nodded. He pulled away, smiling very slightly.

“You’re the boss, Captain Rogers.”

Steph found herself laughing, exasperated and affectionate as well as deeply, deeply relieved. On a whim, emboldened by the open affection in his expression, she caught James’s face carefully in her hands and pressed her lips to his. She opened her eyes to find herself back in sickbay again, fingers pressed to her supposed bondmate’s meld points while Dr. Banner kept a sharp eye on both of them.

“Looks good,” he reported, tone hovering somewhere between disbelieving and deeply admiring. “He entered the trance a minute ago. If we can keep his platelet count where it wants to be he’ll figure the rest out for himself.”

They seemed to have made good progress on that front too- T’asha was already in the neighbouring cot, cradling one of James’s hands in her own while Maximoff oversaw the procedure.

“Captain,” she said when their eyes met. “Thank you.”

Steph smiled, suddenly exhausted, and found Clint suddenly at her elbow again.

“That’s our cue,” he said cheerfully. “You wanna crash here or in your own bed?”

For a moment Steph was tempted to stay, but she knew she had to get some real rest- she had a ship and crew depending on her, and if she couldn’t be Captain first and foremost then she wasn’t sure she should be Captain at all.

“You’ll let me know if there’s any change.”

Both T’asha and the doctor nodded without hesitation. James was in the safest possible hands, Steph knew, so she did her best to include everyone in her grateful smile. Impulsively, she touched two fingers to her first officer’s lips. _Hang in there_ , she tried to think at him, not at all sure it could work that way but willing to make the attempt. _You just stay with me, now._

She fled sickbay, trailed by her bemused navigator, before she had to deal with anyone else’s reaction.

 


	7. home town story

_(two weeks, three days until Tar'Hana rendezvous)_

Several days later, Stephanie was stretched out on the couch in her quarters, trying listlessly to pay attention to the kind of tactical reports that seemed much less tedious accompanied by her first officer’s wry commentary, when a sharp snap in her awareness had her jolting upright with a gasp. She was halfway to the turbolift by the time her comm-badge blared.

“Sickbay to Captain.”

“On my way. Thanks, Bruce.”

Stephanie winced as the lift doors opened- the last stage of the healing trance had always struck her as the most traumatic, and even in the corridor she was all too aware of the fleshy thump of T’asha’s palm meeting James’s face with relentless energy.  Steeling herself to keep her feelings off her face, the captain turned the corner- just in time to see James reach up to grasp T’asha’s wrist before she administered another blow.

“Enough already. I’m awake.”

Dr. Banner hardly had time to raise his tricorder before T’asha grabbed James in a hug so violent that it could well have passed for a wrestling move.

“Troublesome, overly emotional, stupid human boy.”

“Stop, you’re gonna make me blush.”

James’s voice was teasing, but there was nothing joking about the way he put his arms around the Vulcan girl, holding her close until T’asha pulled away so she could glare at him.

“You are  _not_  allowed to risk yourself in such a way again. Is that clear enough for you to parse?”

James gave her the sweetest little smile, tender as a kiss.

“I love you too, ilkam.”

T’asha smiled, just faintly but wider than Steph had ever seen from her, and stroked her fingers down his face the way she had in the memory she had shared with Steph.

“Senkar sends his well-wishes; your mother, also.”

James nodded, still smiling, and reached to tuck a rare straying tendril of T’asha’s hair- the only outward sign of her exhaustion- back into place.

“You should go meditate.”

“I would prefer not to leave you unsupervised.”

The commander raised an eyebrow in a perfect imitation of T’asha herself. 

“In case I do what, exactly?”

Steph chuckled at that, waving at her officers when both glanced over at the sound.  

“Who knows, with you?”

Her first officer pulled a face in protest, but the softening of T’asha’s expression was as good as a toothy grin from anyone else. Steph smirked at James, not quite apologetic, and addressed their science officer first. “Take a break, okay? I’ll keep an eye on this one.”

A speaking look passed between the telepaths, T’asha brushing her palm against James’s in an offer of reassurance Steph couldn’t help but wish he didn’t need.

“He will almost certainly try to secure his release prematurely.”

“Tell-tale,” James grumbled; both women ignored him.

“I’ll do what I have to do, Lieutenant.”

T’asha met her eyes with that level, searching gaze- there was warmth there, and amusement, but also the thinnest edge of warning- before she nodded briskly.

“Thank you, Captain.”

And then she was gone, and they were alone. James smiled before Steph could panic, gesturing for her to take the chair T’asha had vacated.

“They tell me you saved my life again.”

“Least I could do after you let someone stab you to get me out of there.”

She had intended to speak the way he had with T’asha, affectionate but teasing; instead, her voice broke as the too-vivid image of her first officer staggering to his knees swam before her eyes.

“James, god-“

He took her hand when she didn’t speak again, giving her time to pull away but tangling their fingers together when she didn’t. The bond that hummed between them seemed to brighten at the contact, but mostly Steph was conscious of her first officer’s eyes on hers.

 “I’m all right, Captain.”

Stephanie nodded, smiled as widely as she could, and spoke the words she’d been practising for days.

“I signed the papers.”

She gave a poor excuse for a laugh, mostly designed to cover the tremour in her voice. “If they’re half as logical as everyone says they’ll make sure you have your own ship by the time I get these guys back to Earth.”

It was only when James yanked his hand away that Steph understood that the cresting wave of panic that had hit her like a physical blow wasn’t hers.

“I’m sorry,” he rasped. “Thank you.”

“Hey,” Steph protested. She had been braced for gratitude, relief, even joy, but she wasn’t at all prepared for him to react as though she was the one sending him away. “You don’t _have_ to go, I just meant-“

“I’ll go.”  

He had his eyes shut now, fighting for the Surakian stoicism that sometimes made Steph want to smack him.

“It’s for the best.”

“You keep saying that, but you never say what they can give you that we can’t.”

It came out a lot more openly jealous than Steph had been aiming for, but James just gave a half-shrug that was much more tired than argumentative.

“You’ll be safer without me.”

Steph breathed out, very slowly, and tried to remember that James meant he’d be on another ship, not bleeding out against blue grass under an orange sky.

“I’m really not sure that’s true.”  

When he met her eyes Steph reclaimed the hand she had been holding, clasping it gently as she reminded her _acknowledged bondmate_ that he’d found her when neither T’asha nor Tony had the first idea where to look, and that it had been that same bond that had allowed her to assist when T’asha found she couldn’t be everywhere at once.

“Even by your standards I think it’s pretty clear that we’re better off together. What’s a couple bruises to stack our odds like that?”

“Stephanie,” he sighed after a moment. “It can't just be about that, for me." 

For the first time, Stephanie understood what it was she hadn’t explained clearly enough for her poor James to grasp.

“You think I don’t know that? James, sweetheart, of course I want this too.”

She squeezed his hand, smiling when his eyes widened a little at her boldness. "All of it, okay? Before you asked, even, I'm pretty sure." 

His relief, hopeful and grateful in equal parts, soothed an ache Steph hadn’t been conscious of until it was gone.

“You really mean that.”

She dared to smirk at him then. 

“You’re the telepath- you tell me.”

The slow slide of his fingers against hers was a much, much more intense experience than Stephanie remembered.

“Promise you won’t let me hurt you again.”

Stephanie rolled her eyes, unwilling to replay that conversation yet again. Feeling very daring, she leaned in to kiss her bondmate's cheek and grinned at his pure surprise.

“We’ll get it right- we’ve got seven _years_ to practice, James.”

She had never seen him blush before. Stephanie sprang to her feet, suddenly brimming with energy.

“You’re so pretty when you’re flustered. C’mon, you’ll sleep better in a real bed.”

James let her tug him to his feet, but raised an eyebrow in half-serious reproach.

“You told T’asha you would-“

“Make sure you’d get some rest? I will. I never said one word about keeping you shut up in this godforsaken place.”

Somehow, somehow, James managed to keep a straight face.

“Captain,” he murmured, almost severe. “I’m almost certain you’re emotionally compromised.”

Stephanie tilted her chin at him defiantly.

“You gonna tell on me?”

“Never.”

He said it like a vow, so it seemed only right to seal it with a kiss, quick and chaste but still enough to send little sparkles of pleasure across their still-mysterious connection.

“That’s why you’re my favourite,” Steph announced. “Quick, we have to go before Doc Banner figures us out.”

“He knows already,” James murmured, but fell into step willingly. He nudged her gently with his elbow when she hit the button for her own floor instead of his.

“Deck 5, Captain?”

Stephanie laughed.

“Deck 5, Commander. I’m not quite green enough to lock you up with all your lovely files and think you’ll get any kind of rest."

She closed her hand around his wrist and tried to look severe. “You’re with me, Mister, and that’s the end of it.”

He sighed theatrically.

“Power-mad already- they should never have given you your own ship so young.”

There was no apology at all in her answering grin.

“That’s why I’m  _your_ favourite.”

He hardly seemed to move, but Stephanie found herself suddenly trapped against the wall of the turbolift while her first officer grinned down at her with a predatory heat in his eyes.

“You are, you know.”

She let her voice drop as one of her hands found his neck, urging him just a little closer.

“Glad to hear it, Commander.”

The lift doors opened with a clang, leaving the unfortunate Teddy Altman gaping in open-mouthed astonishment on the other side. James, predictably enough, was absolutely calm.

“Ensign Altman,” he murmured, inclining his head in that Vulcan way. The young man nodded mutely, then seemed to remember who he was addressing- he straightened abruptly, making a worthy attempt at a proper salute.

“Sir. Captain.”

Stephanie waved with one arm still around her first officer’s waist. They stared at each other for a moment, then James gave the not-quite-impatient half-sigh that only ever worked for him and T’asha.

“Did you need something, Ensign?”

Teddy blinked, then shook his head slowly. James nodded briskly.

“Very good. As you were.”

“Aye, sir.”

With no other option open to him, Ensign Altman chose retreat. James straightened gracefully, offering Stephanie his arm as if asking her to dance. They made their way to Steph’s quarters in perfect silence, but once the doors hissed closed behind them Steph had no further reason not to ask the question already burning on her lips.

“How the hell did you even imagine that was going to work?”

“It always works for T’asha,” James offered, matter-of-fact. “Though suddenly I realise we could at least have let him take the lift.”

As soon as his lip twitched Steph dissolved in breathless, wholly unprofessional laughter, leaning gratefully into him when James moved automatically to steady her.

“I’m okay,” she murmured. “I love you, James, you know that?”

His eyes were soft with a newfound understanding that looked strangely like acceptance.

“Glad to hear it, Captain.”

“Stephanie,” she growled, and might have tried to tell him off if James hadn’t pressed his lips to hers before she got the chance.

“Steph,” he agreed afterwards, touching his forehead to hers and smiling very sweetly when Steph gasped at the way that new contact lit their every nerve. “My bondmate _and_ my captain.”

“Starfleet’s gonna have no idea what hit them,” Steph grinned. “C’mon, then- bed, now. You’re supposed to be on medical leave.”

“Ma’am.”

Even with one arm still at her waist, James managed a sharper salute than Ensign Altman had been able to scrounge up in the face of the spectacle that was Starfleet’s first ever telepathically bonded command team. Steph shook her head, laced their fingers together, and led the way as she had before and would again. James, still smiling softly, followed without comment or hesitation.


	8. dangerous years

It took longer than it should have for Stephanie to realize that she wasn’t dreaming so much as watching her telepathic bondmate dream. They were creeping down a poorly lit corridor she had seen too many times before in her own nightmares, keenly aware that every wasted second could be the difference between success and failure.

“James,” she whispered, beginning to realize what was happening. “Listen, sweetheart-“

She remembered the moment she was watching in terrifying detail. It had been T’asha who had found the door- Steph had known it was the right one because her science officer had gone completely still for a second before wrenching the door its hinges like it was nothing. Steph wasn’t sure she would ever forget the sight that had met their horrified eyes, but in the dream that wasn’t hers it wasn’t James strapped to the table but Steph herself. 

“No,” she heard him whisper; the first time around, it had been his name on her lips. “Stephanie, please-”

It was too much by half; Steph woke with a gasp to find herself in her own quarters with her still-dreaming bondmate curled, distraught, around her. He was still fast asleep, frowning and muttering to himself as his fingers clenched where Steph’s arm had been before she’d pulled herself upright. She entwined one hand with his to give him something to hold onto, then touched the other gently to his temple. “Wake up, sweetheart.”

His eyes shot open; for a moment he just stared.

“Steph. You’re- I was-”

“Dreaming. Yes.”

James frowned, trying to make sense of it. A moment later, Steph felt his mental shields slide smoothly back into place, cutting her off from the disoriented panic he would still be working through.

“I’m sorry,” he said softly. “I’ll get out of here so you can get back to sleep.”

“Belay that. Don’t you dare move.”

James raised an eyebrow at the command tone Steph almost never used off-duty, but made no attempt to get out of her way when she moved to lie back down with him, putting her arms around his neck to keep him where she wanted him. He yielded readily, even gratefully, when she kissed him, but gave the door another restless glance.

“You need to rest.”

“So do you,” Steph retorted, but let her voice soften in response to the hollow ache he hadn’t quite suppressed yet. “I’m fine, James.”

“I know that  _now_.”

They’d never talked about it, Steph realised abruptly: there had been so much to deal with in the aftermath of her rescue and his recovery that they’d never got round to talking about what it must have been like for James until they’d found her. She hadn’t thought of it before, but of  _course_  he would have spent all the time they’d been apart imagining that Steph would be subjected to every nightmare that had been inflicted on him the first time they’d crossed paths with Zemo.

“It wasn’t like that,” Steph reminded him, resting her cheek against her bondmate’s chest and smiling when his fingers found their way into her hair. “It’s like you said, I guess- they weren’t all that interested in a boring old human.”

She felt surprise and indignation spike along their bond and everywhere they were pressed close together.

“When am I supposed to have said  _that_?”

Steph swallowed hard, determined to answer without a tremour in her voice.

“When you were trying to get him to take you instead of me.”

There was still a part of her that hoped he would deny it- explain some ruse of Tony’s like Zemo had suspected- but James nodded with as much determination as if he thought he might still have to make good on the exchange.

“He would have killed you,” Steph murmured, closing her eyes against the terrible certainty that Zemo would have done much worse than that before he did, and that James had known it when he’d made the offer. Her bondmate’s lips brushed her hair in the ghost of a kiss.

“He would have let you go, first.”

“And, what, that sounds like a fair trade to you?” 

Locked together as they were, she knew his answer before he had to say anything.

“James,” Steph moaned, dropping her head in despair.

“I’m sorry,” he said again, and of course she knew how deeply he meant it. Steph turned her head so she could kiss his chest.

“Don’t be sorry. Just stop trying to die for me every time you get a chance.”

“I don’t think I can do that.”

She might have thought she had misunderstood if not for the fact that she could feel his mingled resolution and regret as if they were her own. “It’s my job, Steph.”

Whatever she had expected James to say, it wasn’t  _that_. Steph pulled away, more hurt than angry.

“I swear, if you start quoting protocol-”

“I love you,” he interrupted quietly. Steph fell silent- she knew it to be true, of course, but it was the first time he’d said as much in words. James let his lips quirk faintly in acknowledgement, but he wasn’t done yet. “And I would love you whether you were an ensign or an admiral, all right, but as long as I’m your first officer my sworn duty is to keep you safe.”

“No,” Steph protested, not sure she knew how to articulate quite how much she never wanted it to be about duty or responsibility between them. Her bondmate surprised her by leaning in to kiss her shoulder tenderly.

“Yes, ashalik.”

Stephanie scowled even as she reached back to cup his cheek with one loving hand.

“I’m sure I never made this much trouble for Peggy when I was X-O,” she grumbled. James pressed a distinctly impertinent kiss to her palm.

“You do know that I was at the Talos IV inquiry.”

“Shut up,” Steph growled, turning at last so she could drag James into a frustrated, laughing embrace.

“Idiot,” she murmured against his ear. “James Barnes, you’re so lucky I love you too much to court-martial you.”

He scowled quite fiercely, but his arms were sure around her and Steph could feel his amusement pricking gently under his hands.

“On what charge would you do that, dare I ask?”

“Being an ass,” Steph decided, touching her lips to his neck by way of claiming it as her territory. “And making me worry. God, you should get a whole year in the brig just for these last few weeks.”

“Cruel,” James accused, easing her back against their pillows until she was looking up at him, expectant and challenging. “Ruthless, vengeful tyrant of my heart.”

Steph tangled her fingers in the dark waves of his hair so she could coax him closer.

“You complaining, Mister?”

His teeth flashed as he smiled.

“I’ve never been _that_ brave.”

He bent to kiss her throat before she could object.

Later, Steph ran possessive hands down his bare shoulders, keeping him close while he caught his breath.James smiled at her from inches away, fingers still tangled in her hair from when he’d let the meld dissolve.

“Steph,” he breathed, like he still couldn’t quite believe it. “Always and still my k’hat’n’dlawa.”

She didn’t think he realised he had slipped into Vulcan, and wondered vaguely whether the VSA had found a way to rationalise just how romantic their so-logical language could be.

“That’s me,” she promised, dragging her knuckles slowly from his temple to his cheek and then back up again. Her heart lurched as he closed his eyes and leaned into her hands like he couldn’t help it. Of course Steph had known, right from that first poorly handled night, how deeply her first officer trusted her; for the first time, she thought she understood just how vulnerable James had had to make himself to let her in in the first place. Suddenly, two years of T'asha's assessing looks made a lot more sense. 

“Let them come,” she decided, meaning Zemo and Strucker and every other threat they would face together. “Let them just _try_ and hurt you again on my watch.”

Her bondmate looped his arm around her waist, pressing his face into her shoulder with an unintelligible murmur Steph took to be a reciprocal vow. She laughed a little breathlessly, sliding a hand into his hair to steady him while she touched cooler lips to his still-flushed cheek.

“Sleep,” she suggested, not sure whether it was her exhaustion dragging him under or vice versa. “I’ll be here, James.”

**Author's Note:**

> things that might make this easier to follow before the rest of the story clears up some ambiguities:  
> 1\. T'asha- teehee I never wondered if her name could be made Vulcan until I wanted to do this, but I'm 85% sure it's Vulcan enough to even have a meaning ('asha' being the root word they give for a bunch of Vulcan endearments) hooray. She's the reason James mostly expresses his Romulan-ness as Vulcan-ness, which we'll also see in more detail later.  
> 2\. the ship is obviously called the USS Avenger.


End file.
